Let There Be Light

In sub-Saharan Africa:

• 7 out of 10 people lack access to electricity.
• 30% of health facilities do not have electricity. They can't store vaccines and lifesaving drugs, or operate essential lifesaving medical equipment like incubators and x-ray machines.
• 90 million children attend schools that lack electricity.
• Each year, there are more premature deaths from exposure to the toxic smoke of indoor open fires and kerosene for cooking, heating and lighting than malaria and HIV/AIDS combined.
• According to survey data of African businesses, reliable energy access is a bigger concern than corruption, access to capital, or sufficiently trained labor.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY), introduced H.R. 2548, the bipartisan Electrify Africa Act of 2013. It is a bill to reduce poverty, improve health and education and bolster economic growth in Africa. It extols the virtues of ramping up U.S. involvement in promoting first-time access to electricity for at least 50 million people in sub-Saharan Africa.

This bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, comes at no cost to the U.S. taxpayer, and could even generate revenue. It also represents a new approach to development aid that leverages the private sector to assist the world’s poorest. Providing access to reliable and affordable energy is a big part of fighting global poverty. 


Today’s gift was to send an email to Greg Walden, Oregon’s representative in Congress, and ask him to join dozens of others congress members and co-sponsor this bill. This could change a lot of people’s lives and turn the lights on for people who have never had electricity.

In Giving and Electrifying,

Robin